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Why Suburban¹ Moms Are Delivering Your Groceries

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Some of the newest jobs of this economy have been created by apps like Uber and Instacart. And it turns out that grocery delivery gigs are particularly attractive to women, who make up the majority of workers. Two apps confirmed this to NPR's Alina Selyukh. As NPR's look into the full employment economy, she spent a day with one suburban mom in Sacramento to find out why.

HILARY GORDON: You want apple?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Just apple and...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: We'll be going to bed.

ALINA SELYUKH, BYLINE²: At 6:30 a.m., 4 out of 5 Gordon family members are up - if you only count the humans, because there are also dogs, chickens, goats, a bunny, a tortoise and a not-so-miniature miniature pig.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Squiggy, come here. Good boy.

(SOUNDBITE OF PIG SNORTING)

GORDON: This is what I have in my kitchen every morning.

SELYUKH: That's Hilary Gordon - she's 47 - doing the morning mom hustle³.

GORDON: OK. Your breakfast sandwich, Jane's check for graduation. Drew, soccer ball - really?

SELYUKH: Her daughters are 14 and 17. Her son is 11.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Oh, by the way. I forgot. I have homework.

SELYUKH: Having time like this with her family is a major reason why Gordon works as a shopper for Instacart. It's one of the delivery apps that hires tens of thousands of people like her to deliver groceries from supermarkets - think Safeway or Sam's Club. It's the epitome⁴ of gig work.

Like with Uber and Lyft, you can decide when to work. But with deliveries, you don't invite strangers into your car. This draws women, often in their 40s and 50s, who now make up more than half of the contractors⁵ working for major food delivery apps.

GORDON: This is what I tend to do. I'll sit and wait.

SELYUKH: This Subaru SUV is Gordon's office. Her Instacart shift today is 8 p.m. to 6 p.m. She'll spend much of it in her car in parking lots with her shopping sneakers on, watching her phone, waiting for grocery orders.

GORDON: There we go. We've got a batch⁶ - $8, there's no tip, for seven items to take 4 miles.

SELYUKH: Plus, the store is another 8 miles away.

GORDON: It's really hard to say yes to that because you feel like then they're thinking, oh, well, see, they'll work for that. And I don't want to work for that.

SELYUKH: But you can't skip too many orders. The app will think you stopped working. Eventually, we get a good one.

GORDON: It's 9.87 for them and a $6 tip, but it's half a mile.

SELYUKH: We're close. The order is eight items. Gordon can knock it out in about 20 minutes. Shopping for other people is a bit like a scavenger⁷ hunt, except the app is timing⁸ you. You rush through the whole store, do your best quality checks on produce, some Hail Marys on hard versus⁹ soft avocados...

GORDON: Is it for tomorrow? Is it for today?

SELYUKH: ...And a surprising amount of chatting up store workers.

GORDON: Hi, Belle¹⁰ (ph). Do you know if they're going to stock more in here?

SELYUKH: Gordon says this is the part she loves the most - meeting other people at the store or at their homes, especially if they have friendly pets. But, like a lot of gig workers, this is not a career she pictured for herself.

GORDON: So I've got two master's degrees - one in counseling and one in - master of family therapy.

SELYUKH: Gordon worked as a therapist in other states, but a move to California required more classes and exams right as her oldest was born. She became a social worker until she made the calculation familiar to many working women. Her job took up mornings and evenings. Her salary - not great.

GORDON: When you're going to pay the majority of it to let somebody else raise your kids, just didn't make any sense.

SELYUKH: A few years later, the recession hit. Her husband lost his job in finance. Their house value dropped. They're still paying down the debt that stacked up. But now, there's also...

GORDON: Swim team, soccer - Drew's cleats fell apart on the field - trips to look at colleges, AP exams, junior prom dresses...

GORDON: This is what I heard a lot as I interviewed more than a half-dozen women working for Instacart and other delivery apps like DoorDash, Shipt and Postmates. They said the apps help them cover some expenses of child and health care and opportunity for side income on top of another steadier job - their own or their partner's. Researchers say this supplemental work is the fastest-growing part of the gig economy.

STACIE BALLARD: If you're a mom or a caregiver, something that's really flexible.

MARTIN: That Stacie Ballard from Atlanta, who's worked for at least seven apps while building her own business. She keeps a stack of work T-shirts in her trunk - a green one to walk dogs for Wag, a gray one to deliver packages for Shipt.

BALLARD: Run to the bathroom, put the shirt on, go through the grocery thing (laughter). And then, if it was the next one, swap¹¹ the shirt out. And yeah, it was kind of funny.

SELYUKH: Ballard works for apps part-time, like many women in the gig economy. Hustling¹² like this full-time¹³ is exhausting. But also, hours are unreliable. Take Gordon, who after a year and a half is a super user at Instacart. She's one of the regulars who gets early access to all hours for the week. But to qualify for that access, she has to commit to this gig basically full-time. And on Sunday mornings, it's a moment of madness signing up for shifts.

GORDON: So it's really anxiety-producing.

SELYUKH: And you're just clicking.

GORDON: Click, click, click, click, click and then save. And then you hit the next day. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click.

SELYUKH: After all that, as any gig worker knows, having more hours does not assure a huge paycheck bump. Remember all that math Gordon does before deciding if an order is worth taking? Gas expenses are a huge factor. Some days, Gordon might drive a total of 100 miles. Instacart pays some of the delivery mileage¹⁴, but not for the drive to the store in the first place. Next to consider is what she'll be buying. Is it complicated or heavy - like this job shopping for two customers at one store for 32 bucks¹⁵ before tips?

GORDON: It looks decent if you don't scroll¹⁶ all the way through to see the last - 13 cases of water.

SELYUKH: This lesson she learned early on when she accidentally signed up for a batch with 81 cases of water from Costco. She had to return and give up the whole order. One final thing she always checks is whether she knows the delivery address.

GORDON: There's occasionally places that I will not go.

SELYUKH: Shoppers said they like to keep mental track of houses with creepy dudes, apartments with no elevators and bad tippers. Orders from businesses are notorious for not tipping. So if the batch does not check all these boxes with enough money, Gordon will probably skip it with a sassy message for Instacart.

GORDON: Pay too low - I will not work for free.

SELYUKH: Today, she delivered eight orders in 10 hours and made $133. Today was OK. Her best day was $255 in 12 hours. As another woman told me, working for an app is a great job as long as you don't really need the money.

Alina Selyukh, NPR News, Sacramento, Calif.

1 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 hustle   

v.推搡；竭力兜售或获取；催促；n.奔忙(碌)

参考例句：

• It seems that he enjoys the hustle and bustle of life in the big city.看起来他似乎很喜欢大城市的热闹繁忙的生活。
• I had to hustle through the crowded street.我不得不挤过拥挤的街道。

4 epitome   

n.典型，梗概

参考例句：

• He is the epitome of goodness.他是善良的典范。
• This handbook is a neat epitome of everyday hygiene.这本手册概括了日常卫生的要点。

5 contractors   

n.（建筑、监造中的）承包人( contractor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Contractors winning construction jobs had to kick back 2 per cent of the contract price to the mafia. 赢得建筑工作的承包商得抽出合同价格的百分之二的回扣给黑手党。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 batch   

n.一批(组，群)；一批生产量

参考例句：

• The first batch of cakes was burnt.第一炉蛋糕烤焦了。
• I have a batch of letters to answer.我有一批信要回复。

7 scavenger   

n.以腐尸为食的动物，清扫工

参考例句：

• He's just fit for a job as scavenger.他只配当个清道夫。
• He is not a scavenger nor just a moving appetite as some sharks are.它不是食腐动物，也不像有些鲨鱼那样，只知道游来游去满足食欲。

8 timing   

n.时间安排，时间选择

参考例句：

• The timing of the meeting is not convenient.会议的时间安排不合适。
• The timing of our statement is very opportune.我们发表声明选择的时机很恰当。

9 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

10 belle   

n.靓女

参考例句：

• She was the belle of her Sunday School class.在主日学校她是她们班的班花。
• She was the belle of the ball.她是那个舞会中的美女。

11 swap   

n.交换；vt.交换，用...作交易

参考例句：

• I will swap you my bicycle for your radio.我想拿我的自行车换你的收音机。
• This comic was a swap that I got from Nick.这本漫画书是我从尼克那里换来的。

12 hustling   

催促（hustle的现在分词形式）

参考例句：

• Our quartet was out hustling and we knew we stood good to take in a lot of change before the night was over. 我们的四重奏是明显地卖座的， 而且我们知道在天亮以前，我们有把握收入一大笔钱。
• Men in motors were hustling to pass one another in the hustling traffic. 开汽车的人在繁忙的交通中急急忙忙地互相超车。

13 full-time   

adj.满工作日的或工作周的，全时间的

参考例句：

• A full-time job may be too much for her.全天工作她恐怕吃不消。
• I don't know how she copes with looking after her family and doing a full-time job.既要照顾家庭又要全天工作，我不知道她是如何对付的。

14 mileage   

n.里程，英里数；好处，利润

参考例句：

• He doesn't think there's any mileage in that type of advertising.他认为做那种广告毫无效益。
• What mileage has your car done?你的汽车跑了多少英里？

15 bucks   

n.雄鹿( buck的名词复数 )；钱；（英国十九世纪初的）花花公子；（用于某些表达方式）责任v.（马等）猛然弓背跃起( buck的第三人称单数 )；抵制；猛然震荡；马等尥起后蹄跳跃

参考例句：

• They cost ten bucks. 这些值十元钱。
• They are hunting for bucks. 他们正在猎雄兔。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 scroll   

n.卷轴，纸卷；(石刻上的)漩涡

参考例句：

• As I opened the scroll,a panorama of the Yellow River unfolded.我打开卷轴时，黄河的景象展现在眼前。
• He was presented with a scroll commemorating his achievements.他被授予一幅卷轴，以表彰其所做出的成就。